Sidekick 98 review

More impressive is the ability to grab your email client's address book, turning it into a new Cardfile which can be used to generate mailing lists. Since this works so well it's frustrating that you can't move in the other direction and launch your email client directly from within Sidekick 98 by clicking on an email address or mailing list. It's also irritating that only users of Internet Explorer, Microsoft Exchange, Netscape Navigator (although not Communicator), and the registered version of Eudora Pro can take full advantage of these features.

Sidekick 98 also supports group working. You can email invitations and collect replies automatically for group events and can schedule resources such as conference rooms, projectors and vehicles. Sidekick 98 can be configured to send and receive Internet Scheduling messages at set intervals: an animated icon changes colour to indicate that you have unread messages.

Finally, in the Internet line there are facilities to Web publish Calendars and Cardfiles for the Internet or intranets. A selected document is automatically given HTML formatting. Web addresses are automatically hyperlinked, and Cardfiles are sorted with A-Z hyperlinks for quick access. A Wizard helps you through the publishing process, which is quick and easy. The end result won't win any design prizes, but it does an efficient job.

Starfish is aware that connectivity between PC and various handheld devices is now an issue, and that the Windows CE 2 to Outlook connectivity and synchronisation that Microsoft offers is a hard act to follow. It has made a valiant attempt to rival this with TrueSync, which boasts the ability to connect with 3Com's PalmPilot, the Franklin Electronics REX-3 (reviewed issue 43, p172) and Windows CE 2 machines.

In fact, the only one of these options supplied out of the box was for the PalmPilot - REX files had to be downloaded from the Web site. Of more concern was the fact that CE 2 capability was flagged as 'coming soon' at the Starfish Web site several months after its launch as an operating system. The good news is that I experienced no difficulty using TrueSync with the PalmPilot and data was transferred correctly first time. I would have expected better.

In the end, the new capabilities of Sidekick 98 are welcome, but sadly the glitches mean it's far from perfect. As a Sidekick user I'll certainly be upgrading, but I know that I may find myself cursing at times when using it in future.

Author: Sandra Vogel